I wrote a post about this little girl's "sister" a year or so ago, in a poem (see the link below). And at the risk of alienating some folks, I want to talk about alcohol one more time this Ramadan season. This little girl and some of her friends entertained me while I waited for my next ride in the middle of Kenya. I spoke to her in my baby Swahili, and she feigned bashfulness for me. Her friends were not dressed as she is here. They had used but clean and decent clothing. As I was eating, they played around me and I camped it up, pretending to chase them, pretending to terrorize them. They squealed and scattered in all directions. She always stayed close however, never drifting more than a few feet, always alert to dart away as I charged. Before I left them, I asked my waitress why this little girl was in rags, why she looked so uncared for. My limited Swahili caught two things: Her mother had died of AIDS, and her father was always drinking pombe (beer). I turned back to the little girl and looked at her intently as I took this picture. I knew what would eventually happen to this beautiful smile, I knew the odds that she would not make her seventeenth birthday.
Before I left, I gave the waitress the equivalent of five dollars and asked her to buy the girl a dress - her patient nod assured me the dress would find its way to my friend. That was the summer of 1989, and this picture is never far from me. I look at it daily, and it affects me in a myriad of ways - today, it made me think about beer, abuse, and death.
As I looked at it this morning, I thought about all the slick beer commercials I have seen, all the arguments for alcohol I have heard, all the billions of dollars spent on this drink around the world. If you are reading this, I would ask you if you would trade your beer for this girl's life. Hers, a million others? Would you trade that sour brew so that a woman isn't beaten to death tonight in Denver? Another little girl isn't molested in London tomorrow morning? Would you trade it to restore the hope and promise of childhood for even one boy, one girl? When you pour that liquid back into your throat, do you ever taste the despair, the bitter irony that each drink you indulge perpetuates the misery of so many, murders some part of the world? Is it worth it?
That's it, no more discussion of alcohol, please forgive my melancholy. A picture paints a thousand words though, and I do wonder what words this one paints for you.
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